The purpose of this blog is to update you on the happenings of Sister Andelin as she serves the people of Nevada in the Las Vegas West Mission as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Yay!!! I am so happy that yall are doing missionary work! I literally teared up here in the library and then told my missionary friend on the computer next to me "My family is doing missionary work! YAY!" And then he just laughed at me.

My spirits are back up.

Things are going well.

Hey Mumma. I have lost my camera case!! Is there anyway you could send me a new one por favor?

Funny stories of the week.

In our area book there is a house that is listed as "Do not go to" because he supposedly pulled a gun on the Jehovah Witnesses. Well of course, we wanted a gun pulled on us! So we went and knocked at his door. Sadly, no gun.

Just an angry man who yelled "Get off my *#@$% property!" And then proceeded to SLAM the door in our faces. The end.

That was super fun.

Another funny one for ya. We are teaching a less active lady who was literally breastfeeding her 2 year-old son during our lesson. Wide-open. It was super awkward and we were trying really hard not to laugh. HAHAHJAHA

Ok. So I love the people here in the ward. Nicest people ever. And we have the funniest WML ever too. (Hey who is the WML in our ward back home?!) We pretty much go over there for a comedy session once a week and laugh our heads off as we discuss missionary work in our ward.

We are starting a volleyball night for the youth in the Tule Springs stake. We have a volleyball player in our ward who has a bunch of nonmember friends who would love to come play. So we are rallying up the surrounding missionaries and told them to invite their LA and INV youth who want to play volleyball. Then we'll finish it off with a rootbeer float party. I'm excited about that.

OK. NOW TIME FOR A FREAKING CRAZY STORY!!!

Our very first contact (where we go up to someone on the street and talk to them) was a lady named Marissa. We taught her a lesson on the street and then she was willing to meet with us the next week. Long story short, this lady passed away this past week! Unexpectedly. She was only in her 30s.

Anyhew, she has 7 kids. And she had a roommate living with her (he was like her brother). Well they want to meet with us. And learn about what their mom was going to learn about. And they want to go to church and get baptized!!! MIRACLES. Super sad about the mom, but I know God can take tragedies and turn them into something good.

It is really hard as a missionary to feel successful when you can't measure the progress of people. Hard to explain.

But I'm excited and so is Sis 'O. I feel miracles just around the corner. It'll take some time, hard work, and obedience, but we feel prepared to do that job.

Ok. Now on to some funny stories.

I hit an elder on his bike. With a car. The end.

He is ok. And the bike is. Hopefully the car is......

HAHAHAHAHA

Ok. Second funny story, we knocked on the house of an African preacher (no literally, from Africa) who talked to us for about 45minutes. This is what he believes-- faith is seeing, no more prophets will ever be called, pictures of Christ are against the 10 commandments, and that he is holier than us. It was a pretty comical conversation. He gave us some info for his church, but wouldn't accept ours, because it had a picture of Christ on it. Also, we tried to pray at the end, but he said that according to the Bible, we can't pray with him because he is more learned in things of the spirit.

I said "Oh really? That's nice. Well can you pray for us then? We would love that."

So he prayed for us.

He also has traveled all around the world-- to over 20 countries and preaches to half a million people. I said " I don't need to travel around the world to know Jesus is the Christ. I haven't seen Him, but I know He is real. Why do we have to go to Africa to preach about Him, when people aren't even willing to go across the street and talk to their neighbor about Him?"

He then went off to talk about how we have to preach the gospel to all the world (we explained that we have missionaries all over the world.

I got transferred to the Tule Springs stake. And I have another daughter in my mission posterity line-- Sister 'Otukolo. She is a Tongan from Hawaii!!

And I LOVE HER!!! She is the cutest, awesomest person ever! We just instantly clicked.

But let's rewind for a second.

This past week was super odd. Maybe one of the oddest of my mission. I know I always say that...but still.

Recap::

Jamie got baptized!!! She is so cute and I am SO excited for her and her family. Her husband, Brian, was able to baptized her and he told us later that she was his first baptism. So special. When I went over Sunday evening to say goodbye, she gave me a special ring, and it meant so much to me, because I know they don't have any extra money.

On Saturday, we got a call from Sis Larsen and she was at president's house. Her companion was going home early, and so she needed a place to stay until transfers-- yesterday. So she was in a trio with us for my last little bit in the area. It was funny though, because I was thinking earlier in the week "Man. I think I'm going to get transferred. I wish Sis Larsen was here, because she could help me pack!" (She is the master organizer.) And then-- Wallah! -- she shows up. And she basically just packed everything for me... I would pack it and then she would take it all out and repack it--but better. Haha. Tender mercy. (I have SO much STUFF!)

We met with "Uncle B" and "Jean Karol with a K" and they threw us a little going away party with a cake that they had bought for us. It meant so much to me!

I got to go to Pahrump, Nevada, because I had to go pick up some of Sis Larsen's stuff.

I got my teeth cleaned!!! (Uncle Alan is the bomb.com) (I had some nasty black buildup on my teeth, so I got them cleaned and now they're pearly whites)

I absolutely LOVED the Palmhurst ward. It makes me really sad to think that I'm gone now. Time flies. Don't waste any time or you'll regret it later. I am a completely different person since I came to the Palmhurst ward. I think the biggest two lessons I learned there was "humility and selflessness". I really came to love people--and to teach people, not lesssons.

I am going to miss Sister Nelson, too. I learned A LOT from her. Mainly, how to become a better teacher and how to be more organized.

But I am so stoked about this area.

So funny story--

Last night after transfers, we were heading to dinner. I have my companion share the thought at the end. Then we go to our car and I hear some people, so of course we go up and talk to them. Pretty cool--got their info for a return appointment. Then I'm like "Ok. Self. We can go home and unpack, or we can just throw Sis 'O right into the work."

After about 2 seconds I think "Let's throw her right in."

But we don't even have a map of our area in our car or anything. So I just drive around a little bit aways from our dinner appointment. And we get out to go tracting at 8:00pm. I let her do the first door. And we knock a few more. Then we get to a house that are members and they let us in. We talk to them for a little bit. And then they say something about the ward.

But I'm like "Hmmm...I think we are in the wrong ward. We are in the Log Cabin ward right now."

And they say "Oh. Haha. Yea, well we're in the Elkhorn Springs stake."

So then I'm like "Great! We're not even in the right STAKE!"

Lol.

Then we went home. Because I realized we couldn't get much done when we didn't even know where our area is.

I learned that I am incredibly selfish and prideful. And that has been a constant lesson Heavenly Father has been trying to teach me for about the past 20 years of my life. I am just now starting to learn it though.

Things are going awesome here.

We had interviews with Pres. And I'm most likely leaving next transfer :(

We also had a special STL training with the APs. I'm kind of bummed, because I wish they had done this 6 months ago when I became an STL. Hahah. But something that really stood out to me during that training was that the girls we are over are our most important "investigators." And this whole time, I was mainly focusing on my missionary work in my area, rather than the sisters. Oops. Well you live and you learn right??

Anyways.

The stay-cation looked super funsky.

We have a special sisters conference for our mission this Saturday. It is our first ever. And we are doing a training on "How to prepare members for lessons." We have some fun ideas and are making a ridiculous/funny video for it. Uncle Alan has let me borrow his pro equipment and I was super stoked to use it!

Just to type that above sentence took like a minute. Looks like this letter is gonna be a short one. This is seriously ridiculous.

Ok. So I turned one year old this week! Holy cow- where does time go?? To celebrate, I cheated on my diet and went to DQ to eat a blizzard.

Ok. Now I'm on a faster computer!!!

Thank you Mumma for the fruit and balloon! That was so sweet. Also, yes, they put up a couple of pictures on the video. Thankfully not the super embarrassing one you supposedly sent them. Haha. The FH one??? Actually, they should have, it would have been funny.

Life is good here. We had a lot of our INV and LAs come to church yesterday, so that's always exciting.

I just love missionary work too much. And I love the Lord too much. He has been so good to me, it's kind of ridiculous.

I get to witness miracles on pretty much a daily basis.

And I love being a STL, mainly because I learn so much from the sisters that I get to go with on exchanges.

Before I begin, I should like to say, I just got fried by the sun. We had a bizone activity with the Spanish missionaries where we played soccer this morning for our PDAY activity. It was super fun, except for the fact that I'm a pale-freckly girl whose skin doesn't like sunlight. I even wore sunscreen, too. Haha. *See picture below

I had an amazing day on exchanges with the lovely Sister 'Ofiu. Let me start at the beginning. The night of exchanges, we were planning out our day for the next day. They walk everywhere--don't have bikes or a car-- so they have a more difficult time, except for the fact that they can talk to everyone they see. Side note- I don't know how they do it, because in this heat it is EXHAUSTING. Kudos to them.

Anyways, I told her about the "appointment with God" idea and she liked it. So we picked 7pm and I looked at their area map and chose the cross streets Fascinating and Entrance.

Well for most of the day we were just out walking and knocking doors, because we only had one appointment in the morning. We knocked on a recent converts door and saw a man across the way. We both waved and said "Hello!" to him. He stopped and said "Hi" back. (If they stop, that's our cue to attack) So we go up to meet him. Come to find out, he had been praying and crying all the night before, and was about to commit suicide because he felt no direction or peace in his life. You see, he was going through a deep depression because his wife, mother, and kid were killed by a drunk driver last year. And he doesn't have anymore family around. We taught him L1 right there on the street and the spirit was so strong. He prayed at the end and said a beautiful, heartfelt prayer and thanked God that He had sent us to meet him. He then proceeded to tell us that we saved his life, because he was thinking about committing suicide that very night. I looked at him and said "Don't you dare do that. God loves you and has a purpose for you here." We asked him if there was a professional who could give him help that we could call, but he said he already had a psychologist. He was excited to meet with the sisters again the next day and gave them his address. It was such a miracle! Except, the other sisters went back the next day for a lesson and his dog was outside and his door was locked...so I really hope nothing bad happened.

We're going to fast forward like 4 hours and skip the boring, heat, and exhaustion that happened during that time. So it is 6:40. We started walking to get to our destination-- Fascinating and Entrance. Now mind you, we had kept praying throughout the day, that God would bless us with someone who would listen to us at 7pm at those specific streets. So now it is 6:54. Sister 'Ofiu says "Oh crap. We are in the wrong area. Fascinating isn't over here-- it's over there!" (She points across the way.) We both look at each other and start booking it. We probably ran a quarter of a mile and looked like wild hooligans as we did so. We also had to run up a little hill. We finally get to our destination at exactly 6:59. We stand all dramatic like in the middle of the 2 cross streets and look around. We see a couple people on their porch step. And then, a man with his 2 sons turns the corner, and walks up to those people, at exactly 7pm. We knew they were it. So we go over to them, all out of breath and panting like fat little dogs. The father asks "Is there anything we can do for you?"

We started laughing like crazy people and then Sister 'Ofiu says "Actually yes. There are a couple of things you can do for us." By this time we have everyone's attention. It is a mother, father, 2 sons, niece, and a grandma. She proceeds to tell the entire story of how we prayed to God and picked these streets and this time. She finished it by saying "And we prayed that someone would be here at 7pm who would listen to a message about Jesus Christ. So will you guys let us share that with you?" The father piped up and said "Yes. Of course, but we are leaving in 5 minutes to go pick up dinner." I said "That's ok. Can we just take 2 minutes?" They agreed. And we briefly taught them the Restoration and bore our testimonies. Both Sister 'Ofiu and I were choked up by the spirit as we taught. And the family was SO engaged! There was a silent reverence that hung in the air as they listened, and they started to move closer to us so that they could hear even better. It was such a tender mercy from the Lord. So amazing. We asked in faith and He delivered. At the exact time and place.

After we left, we said a prayer of gratitude. And continue on our way, talking to as many people as possible. We were heading to a different RCs house and on the way there we both spotted a $20 bill. We ran up to it and were so excited. We looked around to see if anyone was around but no one was. We were talking about what we wanted to do with $20. Then we of course take pictures with it. After the excitement faded, we walked a little further. To our delight, there was ANOTHER $20 bill! We started laughing and screaming. Then we found ANOTHER $20!!! We were ecstatic at this point. I looked around to make sure no one was filming the 2 crazy sister missionaries. I could just picture in my mind those ridiculous reality television series. Thankfully, no one came out to interview us or anything. But we hit the jackpot. $60 bucks. Of course we couldn't return it to anyone, because no one was around. Nut we couldn't just leave it there. So we offered a prayer to God to get inspiration to know who was in need of $60. Sister 'Ofiu recieved inspiration for this one lady. So we find an envelope and a cool BoM scripture and write it on the envelope. And then say "God loves you Penny!" (Name changed)

This was her exact response through a text:

"Hello Sisters...I don't know which apartment you stay in to come by to acknowledge your kindness, but we're extremely grateful! Wee been broke as the 10 commandments with barely enough to put gas in the car to get to the few interviews I've been called to. We JUST paid rent, to stop eviction, today. And it took every dime I had to do it. They say our Father is always "right on time"... And who am I to disagree. He's manifested himself in my situation today, through you! THANK YOU Sooooo MUCH for caring!! I'll keep you posted if anything changes on the job situation. Thanks again!! God Bless you all as well. I'll be in touch. Ttyl."

Isn't that just incredible?!!?!

So many blessings.

Things are going well in our own area as well.

When I was on exchanges with Sister Hadley, we pulled into our apartment complex at 8:50pm. We got out of the car and had just popped the trunk to get her luggage when a furry little dog ran up to me. I had to pretend I liked dogs, for the sake of missionary work, and I leaned down to pet it. I looked up at the owner and said "Hello! Enjoying the nice evening?"

"Oh yes of course"

"Do you live around here?"

"Yup- right over there! (points)"

"Cool. We live right over there (points in opposite direction) with some other missionaries."

"Oh yes! I've seen you all before."

We then start talking and she wants us to start teaching her son who has some drug issues. She takes us to her apartment and invites us in. She gives us water. And then she says "Well, you know, if he isn't interested, I am. So I would like to meet with you."

We went back a couple of days later and taught her about the Restoration. We invited her to pray at the end and she offered such a beautiful prayer. She obviously has a great relationship with God. After the prayer, we have a moment of silence and we wait for them to break that. We sat there for like 3 minutes. Then she piped up--

"Ok. This is what God told me. What you're saying is important. I'm not sure about the whole prophet thing. But I need to keep meeting with you and I need to read His scriptures."

We just sat there, stunned. It was incredible. I've never had someone receive such a clear answer with us there before. It was sweet.

From the subject of my letter, you are probably wondering what. in . the. world. happened.

Or maybe you're not, because you are assuming I am just going to tell you.

IF ONLY I WERE THAT EASY.

But alas, I am not.

You have to guess.

Why do you think I had the most miserable week of my life?

WRONG.

UNLESS YOU WERE RIGHT AND IN THAT CASE, YOU ARE A GENIUS.

So this past week I got SO SICK WITH THE STOMACH FLU.

I had "the double-headed dragon". And it was terrible. It hit me like a ton of bricks on Thursday night after dinner. And I was sick ALL NIGHT LONG. Alternating between being ON the toilet and throwing up IN the toilet.

The hilarious part is, on Thursday night, our water got shut off and we didn't have indoor plumbing-- so we had to migrate to our WML's home to sleepover (or barfover) so I could have a working toilet. I pretty much only got about 30 minutes of sleep that night and I just laid on the bathroom floor for most of the night. And then I got so dehydrated and was so thirsty that all I wanted was water or liquid, but my stomach still hurt. But I still drank some water. And then I threw it up. It was so miserable. And then I slept pretty much all the next day and most of the next. And then Saturday we went out from 4pm on.

And we decided to go street contacting. And we walked up and down Charleston. With virtually no one in sight. In 100+ degree weather. And I was still feeling sick and tired and dehydrated. My thoughts "This is miserable."

And then we finally ran into someone!!! Haha

What was such a tender blessing though, was that on Thursday night when I was sick, it was like 9pm and I was thinking "Man. I really should get a blessing. It's kind of late. I don't know who I would call."

And then not even 5 minutes later, our doorbell rings.

2 elders were standing there because they had to pick something up from the other sisters. It was crazy! So they gave me a blessing and it was so beautiful and comforting!!!

Other that, we found a new investigator Arnol!!!! He is awesome!!! We met with him 3 days in a row! It would have been 4, but then I got sick and then he got sick :(

Also, last night, I had dinner with an ex-felon.

Just when you think you know someone.......

It was awesome! He told us his story. Well actually he shared it in his talk in Sacrament meeting. Pretty neat how he completely changed his life around.

The other day, a less active, we have been working with, said in her prayer "God, don't take Sister Andelin next transfer. It isn't her time to go. She has too much work to do with me."

But not gonna lie-- I'm gonna go a little crazy. Poor Sister Nelson (but she is awesomer than me)

We are going to have to do some rearranging of furniture and such, to at least mix it up a little bit.

I am the official oldest member of my zone-- well the one who has served in my zone the longest.

I'm pretty bummed because Sister Field, one of the other sisters in the apartment, is getting transferred. Now things are going to be A LOT more quiet. Especially because we just fed off of each other all the time and fueled the craziness. She will be missed :(

This next transfer, we are over another set of sisters! We will be getting 8 more sisters tonight at transfers! We lose like 22 missionaries and are only getting 12 out. The same thing is going to happen next transfer too, we lost a lot and only gain like half back.

I had the best birthday ever!!!! They really took care of me out here-- the ward, missionaries, and mission presidency. I got phone calls and texts, "cakes", and presents galore (not really, but I just like that word right there). It was quite the birthday.

Jamie is getting baptized on the 28th of June!!!! We are so excited for her!!!

We went walking last night for a couple of hours and we taught a lesson on the street to two teenagers doing drugs. One of them was interested, the other was not. We'll see if he still is once he isn't high anymore.

We got to go to Pahrump this weekend! WOOT! That was super fun. It reminded me a lot of VA--that is prob why I will never serve there because I LOVED IT SO MUCH. Sister Larsen is serving there, so I got to see her!!! I also ate some Hamhock n' beans for dinner!

I've come to realize that I am NOT a city girl. Like at all. I want to be a farm girl. Yes. Me. Melissa Andelin the Farm Girl. Or live on a ranch. Or a zoo ;)

We had an AWESOME lesson with another one of our LAs. He is so ready to come back to church!!! Woot!!!!! We call him "Uncle B." He was a door we knocked on at literally8:59pm. We had to knock on ONE more door, before we retired home for bed. And it totally worked!

#1more

Hey there is an elder here, Elder Aldridge, who is in the Richmond stake (or maybe Chesterfield) but anyways, he goes home tomorrow. I'm giving him something and he is going to make a special delivery to yall! I'll give him your number and such so he can coordinate a drop-off!

NO WAY. SPECIAL K IS HOME?!?!?!? GAH. I LOVE THIS CHILD. TELL HIM HE NEEDS TO WRITE ME A LETTER (PLEASE). AND TELL HIM HE SHOULD SCOUT OUT THE APARTMENTS AT BYU AND FIND A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE. SO WE CAN CONTINUE OUR CRAZY COUSIN CHARADES.

And Rachel is coming to VA?!?! YAY!!!!! I'm so excited for her!! I keep telling Elder A, that he needs to work at the zoo the summer he gets home!!!! He says he wants to---only time will tell if he's being serious or not!

I'm getting a little bit antsy about transfers coming up. I have mixed feelings about whether I'd want to stay or not. I love the people here, but I feel ready to move on. 6 months in a 3 mile radius is a LONG TIME. And then at the same time, I feel like I could stay again for another transfer, especially because we have some exciting things coming up this next transfer. Regardless, I know I'll serve where the Lord wants me to serve.

Kathy's baptism went well--she was baptized alongside a family of 5 that the elders have been teaching. It was a beautiful baptism and the spirit was really strong. I just know that the Lord is in the details of this work, and I think how special it was that Elder Andelin found Kathy, and then I was able to teach her and see her to baptism. God works in mysterious ways!!! Elder Andelin was able to actually help her in the font, because we had 2 people in there to help steady her. :)

I loved zone conference this week! It was so awesome! It was all about the Atonement and becoming a more consecrated missionary. I was on this spiritual high for a little while and then all of a sudden, I came crashing down. Satan worked on me REALLY hard this week. It was actually one of the harder weeks of my mission. I just think of the opposition we all have to face in life. But I feel like when we experience greater good and light, Satan has to work on us that much harder. I'm not going to lie, I was having some strong doubts and concerns. And I just felt really down. We had had an encounter with a less active who was pretty anti. And some of the things he said really disturbed me. I struggled with that for a couple of days and I did some real soul-searching and praying and reading the scriptures. Yesterday, we were in a lesson with one of our investigators and we were teaching her about the power of scripture reading and I read from Helaman 3:26-30 about how when we read the word of God, we can overcome the temptations of the devil. And as I read that, it pierced my soul and I started crying in the lesson. Of course our investigator didn't understand, but I knew that God was communicating to me as I read that. And that all of my doubts were based on skewed perspectives and not on truth. And then of course, I just felt silly for having doubts and I strengthened my resolve to serve even harder and better.

Prayer is real.

So is Satan.

I love this scripture in the D&C 50:23-24

"And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness. And that which is of God is light; and he that recieveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day."

Yesterday, we had one of our part-member families show up to church. They have two little girls and one of them was acting up the entire time, while the other one loved it. The older one had to get pulled from primary to leave early, and she cried because she didn't want to leave! Our primary president commited the family to come again next week, because she said "It's ok! You can come back next week. Right, Dad?" She looked at the father. And he said "Of course!" Hahaha. I love this family. They are pretty special to me, because they were one of the families that I felt really inspired to talk to. I ignored the first prompting, but when we went back, the wife, Jamie (who isn't a member) let us in and we started teaching her. Her husband had slipped through the cracks because he wasn't on the ward list. But they have already started seeing the blessings of the gospel in their lives and they've been so excited to share with us experiences they have been having.

We have a new investigator, Tashie. She is incredible! She is from New Zealand and we taught her about the Restoration. She accepted it right off the bat and she told us that she knew that what we were teaching her was true! Come to find out, one of her best friends is in our ward!

My diet is going well. Most of the people in the ward have been so supportive and loving! It is so sweet. People have bought me various foods and it has just made my day. There was just one ward member who said to me that hopefully I'll get transferred, because I can't eat anything anymore. Haha. I can see how sometimes people get offended in the church--but honestly, it's not even worth the time to be upset.

I got my birthday present in the mail!!!! I wanted to open it right then, but the comp made me wait. Man. All of my comps do this to me whenever I get something for like a holiday or if it says to wait. THEY MAKE ME WAIT.

A lady came up to me and said that she used to work for a recording studio in NY and that she would like to kidnap me and take me there and sign me on with them. Haha! Too kind. I swear....'er mean promise--- people are just the best.

I am working on becoming a more consecrated missionary! We had to prepare a talk for Zone Conference this upcoming week on becoming a consecrated missionary. It was very enlightening!

This week I went on 2 different exchanges, with 2 amazing sisters. They are great and I learned so much from them. I thoroughly enjoyed being an Hermana for one day! Hermana Paramo is so cool. I'd LOVE to be companions with her one day :) That night for dinner we had a Mexican meal. The spaghetti was delicious--but the enchiladas were so bad! That was really only the 3rd meal of my whole mission that I really disliked. Haha. Even Hermana Paramo thought it was gross, so I feel more justified in my opinion.

Everyone. Please pray for me. I really really really actually have to give up sugar and gluten in my diet because of some serious health issues. And it is going to be incredibly hard, because I love food. But mainly, I love sugar. I would just appreciate all of the prayers in my behalf. And if you get the chance, send me a motivational letter or quote?